Electrosurgical instruments are well known and widely used in the medical, dental, and veterinary fields. Such instruments may generate electrical currents in the RF spectrum which are used to deliver power to hand-held surgical tools incorporating an electrode component and are used to perform surgical procedures such as tissue cutting, coagulation, hemostasis and other electrosurgical applications. An example electrosurgical instrument is described in U.S. Pat. No. 8,998,891 whose full contents are hereby incorporated by reference.
Electrosurgical instruments may include a unit for generating RF power which is delivered to hand-held surgical tools to activate an incorporated electrode or electrodes used to perform electrosurgical procedures. Electrosurgical instruments commonly utilize multiple modes of power delivery including monopolar and bipolar power delivery modes which are used to operate a monopolar or a bipolar handpiece. A monopolar handpiece or apparatus may incorporate a monopolar electrode which engages surgical tissue with a with a neutral plate return positioned on a patient's body. A bipolar apparatus may incorporate a pair of electrodes both of which engage surgical tissue into an electrosurgical circuit. Different surgical handpieces are designed and stylized for a particular mode of power delivery such as a handpiece providing a monopolar needle electrode or handpiece providing bipolar electrode forceps.
A console-type receptacle or console unit may be used to house a circuitry for RF power generation and to provide input and output connections from such circuitry to a variety of external devices including a power supply and a number of hand-held surgical tools. A console unit may include interactive display and input panels for user-operation of the electrosurgical instrument. Input panels provide switches, buttons, touch screens, IR controls and the like to allow a user to select and input the operating conditions in order to activate the electrosurgical tool a specific surgical operation or procedure. Activation of a particular handpiece may be directed by a user from the interactive input panels. Alternately, handpiece activation means such as a connected footswitch or a finger switch in the handpiece may be used to electrically activate the surgical tool to receive RF power for use in a surgical procedure.